Minutes from Union Executive Committee Meeting

Present – Prince Charles Alexander, Rick Applin, Peter Cokkinias, Beth Denisch, Rich Grudzinski, Danny Harrington, Teodros Kiros, Dennis Cecere, Jeff Perry, Diane Richardson, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Will Silvio. 

1. Rick made a motion to accept the minutes from the previous meeting. Rich seconded and the vote was unanimous to accept the minutes.
    
2. Jay Kennedy and Steven Riggs have been going to department meetings in 1140 to share their plans to renovate the bathrooms in 1140.
    
3. We discussed a letter to Performance Division in support of re-instating the Instructor Initiated Withdrawal in the Ensemble Department.
    
4. Jackson is making cookies for the Dec. 8th meeting; perhaps we will have special guests Charles Cassara and Mike Scott.
    
5. We discussed the 403b conversion to Diversified Retirement Services from the Standard and TIAA-CREF. Diversified also handles the defined benefit pension plan. The college is looking for a record keeper with funds that are not proprietary to their company. The Berklee Retirement Committee selects the funds that are available for faculty to contribute to. The Standard will no longer be an option at the college; the money will be moved to Diversified. If you have TIAA-CREF, the option is yours to move your existing money but all NEW contributions will be made to Diversified. The college needs to communicate better with our members; we need them to share the correct information with regards to the how and why this change is taking place.
    
6. There is a pending sexual harassment charge on a faculty member from a student. More information will follow. Jackson will be talking with Larry Simpson this afternoon.
    
7. We discussed the concept of a party for faculty during BTOT.
    
8. We discussed the position paper from last meeting. Teodros and Wendy have started and we need feedback on where we are and where we are headed with this concept. Jackson passed out the draft and we will e-mail him feedback.

Minutes from Union Executive Committee Meeting

Present – Rick Applin, Peggy Codding, Peter Cokkinias, Grudzinski, Danny Harrington, Jonathan Holland, Teodros Kiros, Dennis Cecere, Jeff Perry, Diane Richardson, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, Will Silvio.

Guest - Charles Cassara.

1. Rick made a motion to accept the minutes from the previous meetings. Peter seconded and the vote was unanimous to accept the minutes.
    
2. Part-time faculty will be paid for the final week of the semester, even though finals week ends on Tuesday. Precedent has been set! Let’s disseminate this information through the department reps. 
    
3. The ensemble department has drafted a letter in support of re-instating the Instructor Initiated Withdrawal, due to the specific issues that face ensemble teachers, 43 faculty members signed the petition. We discussed the academic policy involved and possible Yeshiva issues. The union is in support of the initiative but we will check with our lawyer before writing a letter in support.
    
4. Charles received the audit information and will be spending a lot of time with Jeff as the torch is finally passed, the LM2 will be published on-line by the accounting firm. The budget committee will meet to discuss the audit and set the new budget. All of the financial information will go into the fall newsletter.
    
5. We discussed the voice department space issues and the bathrooms in the 1140 building. There are many issues to consider if management allocates all rooms all the time, performance faculty need to have offices in addition to teaching rooms. With all the space being occupied all the time, make-ups are next to impossible. 
    
6. We should craft a position paper outlining the issues of space and working conditions that affect our faculty with a vision for faculty and our future. Another possibility is getting the student government involved to share their perspective with management on space and overpopulation conditions. We will table this discussion until next week.

Union notes from Union / Management Meeting

Present – Michael Abraham, Prince Charles Alexander, Dennis Cecere, Peter Cokkinias, Rich Grudzinski, Danny Harrington, Teodros Kiros, Jeff Perry, Wendy Rolfe, Jackson Schultz, and Will Silvio.  

Management – Jay Kennedy, Bill Whitney, Kari Juusela, Jeanine Cowan, Chris Connors, and Steven Riggs.

1. Jay opened the meeting. 160 Mass Ave Building Construction Project Overview – Bill Whitney made a presentation. This weekend barriers are going up around the area to protect the pedestrians and traffic. There will be a loss of parking around the area. There is a deal with the Westland Street garage, $10 a day or $170 a month – details in the Faculty/Staff news. Demo of the building should be done by end of November. December, below ground construction will begin. Foundation work will take several months to prepare with the removal of the “fill” that is currently there, before construction can begin. The goal is to have the building open in the fall of 2013. Then planning will begin for the renovation of 161-171 Mass Ave and the corner tower at Mass and Boylston. Space is at a premium; we need to consider asking the commercial tenants to move, renovate, then move in OR just move in now and do the work while we are there. In terms of Valencia, the majority of money for Valencia is gifts specifically for Valencia and we cannot use it here.
   
   Union: once this project is done, I hope that we are included in the discussion of the reallocation of our current space; perhaps we could have more space for faculty offices in the new plans. 
   
   Management: berklee.edu/taskforce is a website that has plans of the new space.
    
2. 1140 Bathrooms – a study has been done, we have a plan and Steven Riggs discussed it. There is a core area between 2-5 behind the elevator that will serve as new bathrooms, health areas, and non-gender bathrooms. 
   
   Union: the most important element through this process is communication with faculty. We need to know that you are working on a solution.